


Fever

by argentconflagration



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Consensual Underage Sex, F/F, First Kiss, Frottage, Harrow loves Gideon and it's really annoying for her, Post-Pool Scene (Locked Tomb Trilogy), anyway yeah this is just yet another shipfic set during the evening after the pool scene, hah that's a tag now!! im so excited :D
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:48:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26240647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/argentconflagration/pseuds/argentconflagration
Summary: Harrow's paint had washed off almost completely in the pool, but there were a few bits of paint still stuck in her hairline. Gideon flicked at them with a finger. "Someone hasgotto take better care of you," she muttered.Harrow's response was so muffled against Gideon's shirt that at first she thought she'd imagined it."One flesh, one end," Harrow said, just before she kissed Gideon.
Relationships: Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus
Comments: 5
Kudos: 159





	Fever

Harrow whimpered. 

At least Gideon was pretty sure that was what she heard. "Are you alright?" she asked from her cot at Harrow's feet. The question was one-quarter actual worry and three-quarters a desire to keep talking even though she and Harrow had run out of things to say. Gideon didn't feel like examining either of those things particularly closely.

Harrow didn't even answer, she just made that whimpering noise again. Gideon stared at the opposite wall, in consideration of whether to ignore her, let her keep her secrets, and roll over to sleep. But—fuck that. She sighed, threw off the covers, and crossed the minimal distance to Harrow's bedside.

Harrow was curled into the fetal position with her head head buried under the covers. She looked smaller and more miserable than Gideon had ever seen her, looking not so much like a person as a particularly lumpy pile of rags. Gideon extended a hand—maybe in comfort, but maybe just to make sure Harrow was under the fabric somewhere—and Harrow yanked. Gideon tumbled onto the bed and was promptly wrapped in bedclothes and clingy necromancer. Harrow pressed her face into Gideon's chest and shivered like she was cold, which she absolutely was not. If Harrow _felt_ cold, it could only have been because her body temperature was so _high—_ she was hot to the touch. Harrow barely weighed anything in Gideon's arms—a jumble of bones, held together by black vestments and spite. 

Her paint had washed off almost completely in the pool, but there were a few bits of paint still stuck in her hairline. Gideon flicked at them with a finger. "Someone has _got_ to take better care of you," she muttered.

Harrow's response was so muffled against Gideon's shirt that at first she thought she'd imagined it. 

"One flesh, one end," Harrow said, just before she kissed Gideon. 

Gideon, perhaps too startled to be thinking clearly, didn't pull away. Neither did Harrow. The kiss was chaste, but went on for an eternity. Harrow was—God, she was still shivering and burning up, breathing short and fast against Gideon's face. Gideon moved on instinct. It hit her with sudden flushed shock that Harrow had pulled her _into her bed—_ and, even more improbably, Gideon had let her. She was in Harrow's bed and kissing her. She'd had nightmares about this. 

It was over as quick as it'd started, and Gideon faintly wondered if she'd hallucinated the whole thing. Except that Harrow let out a huff of breath against her collarbone and said, "I'm not going to apologize." 

Gideon didn't respond. Her brain wasn't working yet. 

"You _had_ your chance for apologies and you didn't want them. Unless." Another sour huff. "I mean, unless, you didn't like that."

Gideon cackled. "Oh, my idiotic bone mistress," she said, and kissed her back.

It was the easiest thing in the world, now, to hold Harrow, and cup her jaw, and press her open lips to Harrow's open lips. Tongues were awkward for about three seconds, and then suddenly they weren't, and Harrow was making short, high noises into Gideon's mouth. She tasted just as ghoulish as Gideon had ever imagined she would—bits of paint caught in her chapped lips, mouth tacky with dehydration. But Gideon had never expected her to be anything else. The smuggest parts of her reveled in the way Harrow went slack against her, pliant and vulnerable. She hadn't stopped making embarrassing noises, or shivering, or clinging to Gideon. She was taking up all the air in the room, and Gideon was lightheaded.

_She's mine,_ Gideon thought wildly.

She gave Harrow's shoulder a light, almost experimental push and Harrow folded like wet cardboard. Gideon rolled on top of the Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House, who looked up at her with wide eyes. Her gaze was so intense it was going to burn straight through out the other side of Gideon's skull, and she fixed Gideon with it for all of three heartbeats before her whole face relaxed into a smile. Gideon's heart wobbled. All of this was unfair. 

"Thank you," Harrow said. Gideon didn't respond, because it was too ridiculous to justify a response. 

They stared without speaking for a long moment. Harrow's chest rose and fell beneath Gideon, who was acutely aware of both their bodies. Finally, Harrow murmured, "I've always liked your eyes," which flew in the face of everything Harrow had said about her eyes in her whole life. But her smile was more open than Gideon had ever seen, and the permanent wrinkle between her eyebrows was gone. She looked happy. Had Gideon ever seen her happy? Really happy, not bullshit happy?

"Yeah, I know," she answered, which was itself bullshit, but her brain was still busy trying to process the fact of Harrow lying underneath her and _looking at her like that._ While Gideon's fantasies of being in a girl's bed had always very specifically starred _any girl other than Harrowhark Nonagesimus,_ they were rapidly proving inadequate before the reality. 

It occurred to Gideon that no one else was going to enter the Ninth quarters, to chastise them or even interrupt them. It wasn't the first time she'd had that thought, but on all previous occasions she'd assumed the uninterrupted activity in question would be "trying to kill each other," not making out—or sex? Was that where this was going? Gideon had never had sex before, but she'd also never kissed anyone until ten minutes ago and apparently she was already fucking amazing at it.

"Sorry," Harrow said, and a flicker of impatience broke through the dreamy haze clouding her face. "I meant to say, you have pretty eyes, and would you _please_ keep kissing me?" She punctuated her demand with a particular shift of her hips that Gideon couldn't fail to understand. 

So this was happening, then. Gideon threaded her hands into Harrow's ridiculous, stringy, beautiful hair and kissed her hard. Her tits pressed against Harrow's tits, which wholly occupied her attention for the few moments before Harrow began feeling up Gideon's back under her sleep shirt. Her hands were hesitant, and Gideon felt the question mark in her movements, but all she could think of was the tragedy of the loose and long-sleeved barrier concealing Harrow's body. She tugged Harrow's hem up, and was rewarded with an eager gasp and a quick shuffle to escape it it—definitely the right move.

The sight of Harrow under her made Gideon forget to be self-conscious in her appreciation. She drew her hands slowly down Harrow's bare chest, feeling Harrow's skin hot and responsive beneath her fingers, watching her ribs rise and fall with her shallow breaths. Maybe every half-naked woman was as arresting a sight as this—yeah, no, maybe she had the hots for Harrow, just a bit. A smidgen. 

Harrow's process of wriggling free of her shirt also seemed to have somehow involved settling her thighs on either side of one of Gideon's, and now she squeezed around it like a vice. She was hot between the legs (though that wasn't saying much, since she was also hot everywhere else), and she squirmed impatiently for Gideon to touch her. With her best imitation of smugness, Gideon placed her hands over the soft curves of Harrow's breasts, kissed her again, and rubbed her thumbs experimentally over her nipples. That got a big reaction from her, actually—Harrow arched up into Gideon and shuddered hotly into her mouth. Gideon flared with greed, and repeated the motion more deliberately, drinking in her necromancer's obvious pleasure. 

Harrow was pressing up against Gideon in a rhythm, now, and Gideon was resting only lightly on her in return. If Harrow had asked, Gideon wouldn't have said she was holding back to make Harrow say she wanted it, but she was holding back to make Harrow say she wanted it. 

"Griddle ..." said Harrow.

"Griddle?" 

"Gideon," Harrow admitted with a quickness that made Gideon dizzy. "Please, more, anything. You."

Who was she to deny her necromancer? Gideon pressed her thigh into Harrow, and Harrow made a strangled noise and bit into Gideon's shoulder. In a haze of gratification, Gideon pressed down again, and harder, and Harrow rolled her hips in answer. At first they were frantic and out of sync, but after a minute they figured out how to move in concert, and— _oh, fuck._ Gideon had the hysterical thought that Response had meant to teach them _this._

Time lost meaning, now measured primarily by the deepening of the divots Harrow's fingernails were creating in Gideon's back, and the increasing roughness of her voice. 

"Please," Harrow said, and it punctured Gideon. the word meant nothing, nothing but _stay here and keep doing this,_ and Gideon knew that, knew _Harrow._

"Say it again," Gideon choked out. 

_"Please, Gideon,"_ said the Reverend Daughter.

Gideon crushed Harrow in her grip, and pressed her into the bed, and cried out as a multitude of sensations happened at once. The only sound she heard was Harrow keening desperately—Harrow scrabbling at her back and arching herself up—and Gideon felt herself be overwhelmed. Pleasure pulsed through her, in a long stretch of seconds, until she gasped, and melted into Harrow, both of them breathing deep and hard. 

Gideon opened her eyes—when had she closed them?—and watched Harrow consciously slow her breathing. Her eyes were closed, and her naked face was flushed. A drop of sweat rolled down her temple into her hair. 

Her eyes slid open. "You are a brilliant swordswoman," she muttered, "and _atrociously_ hot." 

This was no time for Gideon to pretend she wasn't enormously flattered. 

"Then you're lucky you're stuck with me," she said, with a grin that entirely betrayed any suaveness she might have been trying to affect. She kissed Harrow's nose with love, and pressed her palm into Harrow's to lock their fingers together. 

Harrow squeezed her hand. "I am," she whispered, fond and unmistakably sentimental. "I have the Ninth House's greatest treasure as my cavalier."

There was nothing Gideon could say to that, so she just rolled off of Harrow to let her poor scrawny necromancer breathe. She looked at Harrow, who still seemed so small, like she could curl up and fit in the palm of Gideon's hand. Gideon loved her. She didn't know if she'd ever be able to force the words past her lips, but she loved her. 

Her eyes flicked to the cavalier's cot as she debated in her head where to sleep tonight. Harrow interrupted her thoughts before she could get anywhere.

"The bed is big enough for a necromancer and her cav," she said. "A cav and her necro." 

Gideon's murmured agreement made Harrow break into a smile, wide and obvious, too big to hide. 

And she looked two seconds from passing out, so Gideon drew up the covers over both of them. She gave her wet forehead one last kiss before settling next to her.

She fell asleep, and for once didn't dream of anything at all. 

**Author's Note:**

> (The last line of the fic directly quotes the book.)
> 
> I wrote this after I finished Gideon the Ninth, because I was upset and needed to heal my heart. I went back and edited it after I read Harrow the Ninth, because I was still upset and still needed to heal my heart. Tamsyn Muir, please give them a happy ending, I'll do anything T_T


End file.
